RELATIONS OF LOGIC TO OTHER DISCIPLINES 299 



as a whole; that is done, though fragmentarily, in the De Anima and 

 Parva Naturalia, where the mental powers are regarded as phases of 

 the processes of nature without reference to normation ; but in his logic 

 he inquires only into those forms and laws of thinking which mediate 

 proof. Scientific proof, in his conception, is furnished in the form of 

 the syllogism, whose component elements are terms and propositions. 

 In the little tract On Interpretation (i. e. on the judgment as inter- 

 preter of thought), if it is genuine, the proposition is considered in 

 its logical bearing. The treatise on the Categories, which discusses 

 the nature of the most general terms, forms a connecting link be- 

 tween logic and metaphysics. The categories are the most general 

 concepts or universal modes under which we have knowledge of 

 the world. They are not simply logical relations; they are existential 

 forms, being not only the modes under which thought regards being, 

 but the modes under which being exists. Aristotle's theory of the 

 methodology of science is intimately connected with his view of 

 knowledge. Scientific knowledge in his opinion refers to the essence 

 of things; for example, to those universal aspects of reality which 

 are given in particulars, but which remain self-identical amidst the 

 variation and passing of particulars. The universal, however, is 

 known only through and after particulars. There is no such thing 

 as innate knowledge or Platonic reminiscence. Knowledge, if not 

 entirely empirical, has its basis in empirical reality. Causes are 

 known only through effects. The universals have no existence apart 

 from things, although they exist realiter in things. Empirical know- 

 ledge of particulars must, therefore, precede in time the conceptual 

 or scientific knowledge of universals. In the evolution of scientific 

 knowledge in the individual mind, the body of particulars or of 

 sense-experience is to its conceptual transformation as potentiality 

 is to actuality, matter to form, the completed end of the former 

 being realized in the latter. Only in the sense of this power to trans- 

 form and conceptualize, does the mind have knowledge within itself. 

 The genetic content is experiential; the developed concept, judg- 

 ment, or inference is in form noetic. Knowledge is, therefore, not 

 a mere "precipitate of experience," nor is Aristotle a complete 

 empiricist. The conceptual form of knowledge is not immediately 

 given in things experienced, but is a product of noetic discrimination 

 and combination. Of a sensible object as such there is no concept; 

 the object of a concept is the generic essence of a thing; and the 

 concept itself is the thought of this generic essence. The individual 

 is generalized; every concept does or can embrace several individuals. 

 It is an " aggregate of distinguishing marks, " and is expressed in a 

 definition. The concept as such is neither true nor false. Truth first 

 arises in the form of a judgment or proposition, wherein a subject 

 is coupled with a predicate, and something is said about something. 



